American Express OPEN has published its fifth annual investigation into the state of women-owned businesses in the United States. It provides stakeholders in the women’s enterprise development community—policy makers, entrepreneurial support organizations, suppliers and customers and women business owners themselves—with information and intelligence that can inform their efforts. American Express OPEN is proud to build upon the growing interest and commentary generated by its previous reports.
The analysis continues to indicate that, while the number of women-owned firms continues to increase at rates exceeding the national average and their economic clout continues to strengthen, they remain smaller than the average firm. Since the first annual report published in 2011, American Express OPEN has expanded its analysis to include an investigation into growth trends at the metropolitan area level, new insights on the size of firms within industries, an exploration of growth along the business size spectrum, an analysis of the tremendous growth seen among multicultural women-owned firms and a look at daily business creation rates—comparing rates before and after the recent recession.
With this body of work, based upon published information from the U.S. Census Bureau, American Express OPEN hopes to spark debate and discussion, draw attention to the growing diversity of women-owned enterprises and women business owners and help point the way to areas where policy and programmatic support can help even more women-owned firms to reach their full potential.
Read the complete 2015 report here.